WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist and author of the NYT best-selling novel GUN MACHINE. His graphic novel GLOBAL FREQUENCY is being developed for television by Jerry Bruckheimer and FOX. He is the writer of the graphic novel RED, adapted into the film starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren. His next book is NORMAL from FSG.

(Some Of) My Favourite TRANSMETROPOLITAN Covers

Published January 25, 2013 by Warren Ellis

We had great cover artists on that book. I mean, in a perfect world, Darick would have done them all. But it’s not, and so we had some of the greatest artists in comics taking turns with him. Not a bad cover in the lot. I was just thinking about it today. Some of those covers live with me still, and never got the kind of applause they deserved. Here are a few of those.

John Cassaday. We worked together on PLANETARY for years, where he amazed people with his covers. But, weirdly, I still think this is the greatest cover he’s ever done. It’s just too exquisitely imagined for words, really. A beautifully drawn and incredibly simple, incredibly clever piece of work.

Well, it’s Moebius. Therefore your argument, if you had one, is invalid.

Moebius was the pen name of Jean Giraud, one of the very best comics creators and artists France produced ever. He was one of those rare people who genuinely deserved the tag “genius,” as far as I’m concerned.

I’m fascinated by how raddled and awful Spider looks under Moebius’ ink, too.

Jaime Hernandez. Therefore, the comment above mostly applies here too. How the hell my editors convinced these people to do covers is beyond me.

What interested me here was that artists usually went to the frenetic or the scowly with Spider Jerusalem, but Jaime Hernandez cages up this moment of quiet desperation that I love.

There is something purely Tanino Liberatore about JG Jones’ cover. I don’t know what Jones is doing these days, but I presume it’s not kinky Euro-style science fiction, and I am sad for that. Because this picture is just beautifully set up, and I like how it communicates Spider’s relationship with his “filthy assistants” – that they could basically kill him any time they liked because he was a physical wreck with all the implicit fighting ability of an old dishrag.

My favourite of Darick’s own covers. Pure joy, and yet, at the same time, pure Id. Spider’s expression says “I am alive and having great fun” and somehow also “I just shat on somebody’s baby.”